Part 17 (2/2)

I looked at Nez, trying to squeeze her mouth shut with my stare. ”I'll give you a reason to go to the infirmary,” I mumbled.

Troyer stood with her arms wrapped around herself like she was afraid my skin would fly off and come in contact with her skin.

”I'll deal with Wick,” Rawe said, looking at me. She held the cabin door open, waiting for me to walk out of it. ”Today, Wick,” she added when she felt she'd waited long enough.

I scratched as I followed her out onto the porch. I kept scratching as I followed her to the infirmary-honestly, I couldn't stop. I wished I could rip her braid off and use it to scratch my skin like a Brillo Pad.

”So,” Rawe said, ”do you want to tell me how this happened?”

I guess this was how she was dealing with me. At least she wasn't yelling, but I knew her voice was soft because she wanted me to talk to her. Really talk to her. I kind of wished she were yelling.

”I don't know,” I said again.

”You're lying,” she said, but she didn't look at me. ”I get that you don't want to open up to me, but you need to understand that each time you choose not to, you make it harder for me to help you.” She kept walking, marching really, like she wanted me to have to struggle to keep up with her. Which I was.

I looked down and scratched at the parts I could as we walked.

We moved up toward the soccer field. I was hoping that Ben had relocked the equipment shed, or I might have had to not answer some questions about that, too. Not like an open equipment shed automatically equaled poison ivy, but it did equal something.

”You don't want to tell me what happened, fine,” Rawe said. ”Just do not do whatever you did again.”

It seemed like I had gotten out of this a little too easily, but maybe Rawe figured that the result of what I had done was punishment enough.

For as much as I itched, it might have even been too much.

We didn't talk the rest of the walk. It was hard to speak anyway because I was SO ITCHY. The kind of itch where it is all you can feel. Like I felt when I found out I was pregnant-not itchy, exactly, but where it was all I could feel. So consuming that there was nothing else, only that, like a cannonball balanced on my chest.

We reached the infirmary, a building the color of a nurse's hat with a blood-red cross painted on it. Rawe pulled the key out from around her neck to unlock it, but it was already unlocked. She looked at me like I might have the answer, but my mouth stayed shut.

Rawe pushed open the door. We heard voices inside.

”Not your best day, Claire,” Nerone grumbled.

”Yes, sir,” Ben said.

”Well,” Rawe said, turning to look at me, her eyebrows going up so high they hit her hairline. ”Wonder why they're here?”

She wasn't asking like she really wondered, she was asking like she knew the answer. Like she knew that Ben was here for the same reason I was.

That we were both here because we had been together.

Nerone turned to us as we entered the room. ”Oh, another one, huh?” he asked, seeming far less surprised than Rawe had been.

”Yeah,” Rawe said, stretching out the word. ”Some kind of epidemic.” Her words hung in the air like the smoke from a just fired gun.

Ben had the rash on his arms, legs, and back. He was in his boxers-blue plaid-and even though I could tell he was in pain, he also looked pretty pleased with the fact that I had to see him this way. He didn't seem embarra.s.sed, though I could feel my cheeks light up like fireflies.

Ben had managed to get poison ivy everywhere, which meant he had taken off his whole uniform after I left him last night. Maybe he really was totally f.u.c.ked up.

Nerone was wearing latex gloves and slathering him with Pepto-colored lotion. If I didn't want to basically take a potato peeler to my own skin, I might have made a joke about Ben being covered in girlie-pink, but d.a.m.n I wanted that cream. I wanted to swallow it and have it come out my pores.

”Is there a reason why both of you have poison ivy?” Nerone asked. Even if he wasn't surprised it didn't mean he didn't care.

”I already asked Wick,” Rawe said, like I wasn't standing in the room with them. Still, she had no proof that we had been together last night, but our seared-red skin was a pretty decent clue.

”The first one of you to speak up is immune from punishment,” Nerone said tightly. It was hard to take him seriously in his gloves covered with pink.

Ben looked at me. I could bust him, but he could also bust me. Both our mouths seemed ready to say something, but neither of us did. I would never do what Amy had done to me. I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for what Amy had done to me.

”Uh-huh,” Nerone said, his jaw pulsing.

”What are you going to do with him?” Rawe asked, pointing her chin in Ben's direction.

”Lock him in one of the exam rooms till he's no longer contagious. All we need is a real epidemic,” Nerone said.

Rawe went to the medicine cabinet and found another bottle of calamine lotion. There were ten of them, stacked side by side like a grocery store shelf.

”Ben's already showered,” Nerone said. ”Make sure she cleans up first. It's important to get the resin off or, well . . . Leprosy,” he whispered.

I looked at him. My mouth was open wide enough to catch flies.

Nerone laughed long, loud. He might have hit his leg, too, if his hand wasn't covered in pink lotion.

a.s.shole.

Rawe pointed to the bathroom. ”Don't even think about locking it,” she said, her face turning as red as the welts on my body.

I walked in and closed the door. Not only was there a shower, but there was a pretty white porcelain toilet. If I'd known poison ivy would have been enough to get me the use of a real bathroom, I'd have gotten it the very first day.

Considering they had enough calamine lotion to paint a little girl's room, it must have meant they knew poison ivy was an issue. Maybe they should have tried removing it from the camp before we got here. Of course, if you were stupid enough to lie on the ground with no clothes on, I guess you deserved it.

Ben had made me that stupid.

The water hit me, warm, heavenly. My body relaxed. It was too bad my skin felt like it was on fire, or I would have stayed in there for hours.

I got out of the shower, dried off, and put on my bra, underwear, and the robe that was hanging on the hook. The water helped the itching a little bit, but it was still there, wrapped on top of my skin like a web. When I opened the bathroom door, Nerone was still slathering Ben with calamine lotion. Either Nerone was really enjoying himself, or Ben was in bad shape.

”Okay, Wick, undress,” Rawe said.

Ben looked at me. I could tell he was trying to stifle a laugh.

”Um, here?” I asked, holding tight to the robe, even though it was probably dirtier than the floor we were standing on.

”Oh, right,” Rawe said, like she had forgotten there was a difference between boys and girls. ”Come on.” She took me into one of the exam rooms and closed the door.

She looked at me and waited.

<script>